A win for polar bears in Coke’s most successful campaign ever

Polar bears are disappearing from Coca-Cola cans, but real bears are more likely to stick around, thanks to the wildly successful Arctic Home campaign.

Arctic Home, a partnership between WWF and Coke, turned the company’s familiar polar bear marketing campaign into a boon for the bears. Polar bears adorned every Coke can in North America during fall and winter 2012, encouraging the public to make a donation that would be matched dollar-for-dollar. A spokesman for Coca-Cola Canada called Arctic Home the most successful campaign they’ve ever done.

In just 5 months, Arctic Home raised nearly 2 million dollars for polar bear conservation. In addition to the financial support, millions of people in Canada and the US heard our message about the threats to polar bears and their habitat.

Speaking with Canada’s Metro Media, WWF’s Geoff York said the money “gives us the chance to fill in the knowledge gap.” The remote location and extreme weather in the polar bear’s arctic habitat makes research challenging and expensive. These funds will allow WWF to support research, and work with Inuit and other northern communities to learn more about the bears.

The funds raised by Arctic Home support WWF’s polar bear conservation work around the world, including a project to chart a future for the area of Arctic sea ice likely to persist the longest: the Last Ice Area.

The campaign will run again next year in North America, and may expand to other markets.

Polar bears decorated Coca-Cola cans in 2012 to support the Arctic Home campaign.